Evolution May Not Survive
by Khiori
Summary: Sometimes just doing paperwork can get too exciting for Korsak with Maura and Jane around.


Korsak walked into absolute _chaos_.

Dr. Isles' office was well known throughout Boston for its warmly chic but ruthlessly ordered atmosphere. Personally, he had always thought it represented the woman who it belonged to perfectly. Feminine and intelligent, with a bit of eclectic fascination.

And a little OC where it came to precision.

Normally.

But right now the office looked like SWAT had been through.

Followed by Narcotics.

Then Homeland Security.

Maybe the Marines.

Korsak stared around.

Definitely the Marines. On their first leave from the searing hot insanity of the Sandbox. Or just getting out of Pendleton and all righteously charged for their first active duty assignments. It could honestly be either way. He knew Marines.

"Uh . . . Maura?"

There was a _thump_ from the general desk area, or at least what had once _been_ the general desk area as he couldn't actually see it now, followed by some French. And Latin.

Huh. He hadn't known you could swear in Latin.

Then again, he hadn't known Maura _could_ swear.

Jane, sure.

Maura no.

At least he was _assuming_ it was swearing from the growling scathing bite of the sounds.

Maura stuck her head around a haphazard heap of cardboard case file boxes. " _What?_ "

Korsak found his eyes widening even further.

Maura was normally as suavely pristine as her office. Her hair was always beautifully kept, her cosmetics flawless, her expensive clothes crisply ironed, even her fashionable shoes perfect.

Well, discounting when she went to crime scenes, of course.

Then the shoes inevitably tended to self-destruction for some reason.

Jane always found it hilarious.

Something about even Fate being unable to resist a pair of Jimmy Choos.

Korsak had always quietly wondered if it was her naturally unconsciously expressed engrained upper crust social status or if it was a deliberate carefully cultivated elegance in some sort of psychological counter response to her position as the embodiment of Death in Boston.

But whatever it was, it certainly wasn't present right now.

Her hair was in almost amusing disarray, her eye liner smudged a bit from sweat, her silk blouse opened just a little carelessly at the top with hastily rolled sleeves and a few wrinkles.

He had the feeling that if he could actually see the rest of her, he'd find dusty smudges all over her skirt and bare feet.

And she looked hot, tired, and smolderingly frustratingly _angry_.

"I said: Did you _need_ something, Korsak?"

He blushed a little, realizing he'd been staring at her so hard in disbelief that he'd completely missed what she'd said a few times. Which definitely had only worsened her already overstrained temper.

"I, uh, I . . . ." He looked down at his hands, saw the papers he had clutched in them, and remembered suddenly what had brought him to her office in the first place. "I . . . just need your signature on a couple of forms."

Maura scowled darkly at him, her hazel eyes dangerous. "Is that supposed to be _humorous?_ " She snapped.

He found his mouth dry and swallowed a bit. He had no idea what was going on but it was obvious he'd stepped right on some Maura verbal landmine. "Uh, no, ma'am."

His bit of uneasy retreating formality seemed to actually calm her and she sighed heavily. He watched her close her eyes, her mouth murmuring numbers.

Was that French again?

And he felt relief as her petite body slowly relaxed.

Somehow it didn't surprise him that Maura knew a good meditation mantra.

When she opened her eyes, the hazel was clear again. And a bit shyly embarrassed.

"Please accept my apologies, Korsak. I've . . . had a bad day."

He could forgive it easily. Knowing her normal almost fanatical love of absolute order in her life, he could actually completely understand why she wasn't reacting well to whatever had caused the utter chaotic destruction of her beloved office and a wild disruption to her exact almost clockwork preferred work routine.

Honestly, it only made him wonder again how she had managed to become best friends with Jane.

That woman was distilled impulsive random Italian chaos _itself_.

He grinned softly. "It's okay, Maura, everybody has those, I guess. Can I do anything to help?"

Maura roughly brushed some of her slightly sweaty soft hair back off her face. It left a grey brown smudge of dust on her already exertion pink flushed fair cheek but there was no way he was going to mention it. She gave the disaster around her a weary Evil Eye.

"Thank you, but I rather doubt it. It's quite obvious that it isn't _here_."

"What isn't here?"

"My Evolution of Script."

Ah, _now_ he got it.

Maura loved cultural antiquities as much as she did beautiful modern art. Her office displayed private collector pieces from around the world that could easily belong to a well appointed small museum. He thought it might be her innate balancing of warmly golden life to the cold stainless corpse filled morgue she ruled over.

"That's bad."

Maura sighed, openly dismayed as she stared around her.

"I _knew_ I shouldn't have left it out, but I've been so taken with its lovely depiction of the human progression of writing that I simply couldn't _resist_. I find the gradual transition from ancient cave and rock pictorial symbolic displays which were the beginning primitive visual communicative precursors to later more developed examples such as Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mesopotamian cuneiform, which themselves were some of the early precursor examples to the even later more efficient alphabet based writing systems which continue to be the basis for the vast majority of world languages still today, to be an utterly _fascinating_ study. Oral history is extremely fragile and flawed, depending upon memory and an unbroken line of faithful storytellers to record a culture's history. It was only the movement toward written languages that truly allowed humanity to progress faster and more successfully because it at last prevented most of the repeated tragic prior losses of human historical records, technological developments and cultural achievements that the world had suffered before with the continual loss of the oral transmit of such records."

"Huh."

It never ceased to completely amaze him how much her brain could hold. And repeat back at a moment's notice. Jane was more used to it than he was, but even she got a little glaze-eyed crazy at times.

The entire precinct had found it more than a little amusing and had long quietly and mischievously taken to renaming Google after their resident Queen of the Dead.

"It was hand-engraved, complete with gold embellishments depicting the various representative epochs of the development of writing."

"Sounds amazing."

She looked at him almost mournfully. "It was my favorite writing implement."

"Wait, _what?_ "

"Only nine hundred thirty pieces were made in this edition, in artistic homage to 930 B.C., when the adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet took place in the Mediterranean locale of Crete, where it was absorbed and refined into what became the highly world influencing Greek alphabet, making their union generally considered the first 'true' _complete_ alphabet as it possessed both consonants and vowels with equal linguistic merit."

Sweet merciful heavens, all this was for a pen.

A _pen_.

Korsak scrubbed his face in utterly incredulous disbelief.

And then he thought about everything he knew of Maura.

Okay, it actually made sense.

In her completely endearing geeky slightly obsessive order driven stubbornly determined completely naturally weird entirely Maura way _sense_.

"So, uh, when did you last see it?"

"This morning." Maura said promptly, "I left it on my desk when that triple homicide came in and I was asked to expedite the autopsies."

"Do you want me to pull up the interior security recordings? You don't have one in your office but there is one in the hallway. Maybe we can see who came into your office today."

"I already tried that route. Unfortunately, the entire interior recording system is currently down since Frankie accidentally spilled coffee on the main."

"The main is encased in _steel_ and is on a _wall_."

"It was open for upgrading and he tripped, which resulted in an arching splash apparently rather reminiscent of arterial spray at a crime scene."

He sighed. "Only Frankie."

Maura's mouth twitched. "He has a singular gift."

"So, if I can't track it, maybe I can at least keep an eye out for it. What does it look like?"

"Would you prefer a verbal description or should I extract an identifying picture from the Pelikan website?"

Korsak thought about Maura's verbal tendencies. "A picture would be fine."

She unburied her laptop and in a few moments he was staring down at the reason for all the chaotic trouble.

"Huh. Pretty."

"I do find it aesthetically pleasurable myself as well."

"It looks expensive."

"Expense is relative. There are, of course, far more costly examples of writing implements. For example, the Italian Aurora Diamante with two thousand diamonds embedded along the surface of its body sells for approximately one and a half million. Then there is the Caran d'Ache from Switzerland-"

Korsak felt ill. "Please tell me you didn't lose a million dollar pen in the Boston Precinct, Maura!"

Maura laughed at his apparent absurdity. "Korsak! My income bracket does not come near _that_ level of expendable luxury."

He felt the sudden knot in his chest relax. "Oh, good."

"The Pelikan I'm looking for is only a few thousand."

And it came right back. "Oh . . . good."

She sighed and stared around at the nightmare her office had become morosely. "A proper hand comfort in a regular use writing implement is absolutely _essential_."

He patted her shoulder comfortingly. "I'll do my best, Maura. Promise."

Maura smiled at him. "Thank you, Korsak, you are most kind." Then she blinked. "Oh! Where are my manners? What brought you to my office now?"

He held up the papers in his hands and his eyes twinkled at the irony. "I need your signature."

Maura laughed. "Do _you_ have a pen?"

Korsak patted down his suit pockets until he found an ordinary brutally chewed cheap Bic. He handed it to her with a teasing flourish. "Your pen, ma'am."

She took one look at it and laughed again as she signed his papers. "Jane got to this, didn't she?"

He grinned. "That woman's an epic pen destroyer. I've taken to hiding mine. I'm thinking of buying her a chew toy. Like the one Superman got for his dog, Krypto."

Maura snorted.

Korsak watched her sign and thought it fit Maura exactly that even with a city issued Bic, she had the most amazingly beautiful penmanship.

"Do you need help getting this all back into order?"

Maura smiled at him fondly. "Thank you for asking, but it would really be best if I do it. I have a specifically custom adapted alphanumeric code regimented filing system."

"It would take you longer to teach me than to do it yourself."

"Precisely. Though I am grateful for your thought."

"You are welcome. Good luck, then. I'll keep an eye out for your pen."

"A Bic is a _pen_ ; a Pelikan is a _writing implement_ , Korsak."

He chuckled to himself all the way up the elevator ride to Homicide.

Between Maura and Jane, even paperwork was somehow rarely dull.

Korsak got back to his desk, took off his suit jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. He neatly filed the now completed forms in their respective folders, got himself some fresh coffee, and settled into his chair with a long suffering sigh for another round of paperwork.

He peered down at the illegible almost haphazard intense scrawl that covered the first page, trying to decipher it. After a few minutes, he gave up and got his glasses out and stared at it some more.

Jane.

He shook his head. _Honestly._ This is what came from the computer generations. That woman needed to take some penmanship classes from Maura. Good grief, he could barely _read_ this stuff! At least this time she'd used a decent working . . . .

Korsak slowly leaned closer to the form.

Oh . . . no.

State offices like most government offices used Bic. They were utterly cheap, lasted about three times longer than most fancier gel pens unless you got a bad batch, and while definitely irritatingly sputtery at times they could write on just about anything you needed to write on in an office. Everything that made them desirable to bureaucracy at its paperwork finest.

But this one _wasn't_ a Bic.

He leaned closer.

It wasn't a gel, either.

This was an actual old-fashioned ink, smooth and boldly black. It brought to mind instantly class, refinement and . . . .

And expense.

Korsak's eyes slowly widened in understanding horror.

Oh . . . _crap._

Evolution just met Jane.


End file.
